FOI reveals 1,600 Shropshire Council staff earn under living wage

Hundreds of Shropshire Council staff are in ‘working poverty’ and earning barely more than the minimum wage, new figures have revealed.

A total of 1,600 full and part-time workers, including school staff, are on less than the national Living Wage, which is £7.45 per hour outside London.

The figures have been revealed in a Freedom of Information request by trade union Unison, which has now set up an online petition calling for better wages to be introduced for the council’s lowest-paid workers.

I am a journalist and author. I am a staff writer at the UK edition of WIRED magazine and in 2015 my book, Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. I created FOI Directory in 2012.